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Outside, the brisk air swirled quietly with a light snowfall, slowly accumulating on the concrete rooftops and the windowsills outside, painting Houston with just a light brush of white. Wherever the Lalondes went during the wintertime, it seemed that snow was always quick to follow, even in god damn Texas of all places, but that was just fine with Roxy. For once, the air conditioner was not running at full blast, window cracked slightly to get that whistling cold wind inside while the ratty couch was sat upon by the two, the old fabric smelling of age and basement, that kind of nostalgic scent from a friend's house you used to hang out with in elementary school but then lost touch with after adulthood.
All of Bro Strider's apartment smelled like that, of course, but the couch smelled of it the most. A perpetual scent of quiet childhood nostalgia for a man who has never really grown up. An old Xbox 360 quietly hummed with Netflix nature documentaries on the television screen, a comfortable backdrop to the two quietly experiencing a moment of calm. Dave leaned on one arm, with one of Roxy's quilted blankets brought from home draped over his lap, while Roxy leaned on the other arm of the couch, her entire body curled up sideways into herself, using one of Dave's ironic dinosaur-covered sheets as a blanket.
More than the gentle scent of faded childhood memories, of course, was the much more distinctly overpowering scent of chocolate looming in the air. It was not the world's best hot chocolate, unfortunately. It was not made with care and love except insofar as you could put care and love into a microwave and care and love your way into pressing the buttons. There was no warm milk mixed with melted chocolate until a rich, pourable emulsion formed, nor were there handmade marshmallows that took several hours to make and left your countertop sticky and covered with powdered sugar but otherwise tasted exactly the same as normal marshmallows. There just wasn't the room, time, energy, or money for that. Do you want to know what there was?
There was powdered hot chocolate from a little pouch you tore open and dumped into water or milk, stirred in a fruitless attempt to dissolve all the hydrophobic chocolate powder chunks until it was at a consistency that was at the bare minimum tolerable, and then you microwaved it. If you wanted to get really fancy, you might dump some Jet Puffed Mini Marshmallows in there, which both of them did, gleefully compounding to the sugar contents of their drinks. Dave used a little plastic straw left-over from some fast food that he never used for his soda. Roxy sipped from the rim of the mug, leaving tiny little lip gloss impressions on its side with every lift to her mouth.
It was still hot, of course, fresh from the nuke, steaming with microwave radiation induced miniboiling. Dave, ever-adventurous, took the tongue-burning trip every thirty seconds or so, pulling up the minimum amount of hot chocolate he could use to determine "Yep, still hot", and then letting the seal between his mouth and the straw drop whenever it still proved to be very hot. Roxy just felt for it with her lips, sensitive as they were to temperature. Dave stirred his little marshmallows in until they formed a thick slurry at the surface of the hot chocolate. Roxy preferred to swallow each little marshmallow whole, one per sip minimum and maximum.
Hot chocolate ran through their veins, metaphorically speaking, each warm sip sliding down their gullet until it reached a comfortable spot in their stomach, sitting, resting, warming them from the inside out. Dave gently wiped his bangs off his face, and then reached down to pluck a single bleached-blond hair out of the top of his hot chocolate, frowning slightly and wiping it off on the arm of the couch. He brought the straw to his mouth, took another sip, and burnt his tongue again, frowning harder. Roxy looked at him after he made a little noise, eyebrow raised, and chuckled, before turning her attention back to the penguins flopping around on screen.